KIWINET COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Hon Ruth Richardson - KiwiNet Board Chair (Elect)

The Hon Ruth Richardson, the former New Zealand Minister of Finance, has considerable involvement in the local and international business community chairing the Jade Software Corporation Limited, SYFT Technologies LTD, and the KULA Fund. Ruth Richardson is also a director of the Synlait Milk, Synlait Limited and Ruth Richardson (New Zealand) Limited.

Andrew Turnbull - KiwiNet Investment Committee Chair

Andrew has spent the last 15 years working in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the UK and has extensive experience in most aspects of these businesses, including compliance, manufacturing, research and development and licensing. He spent from 2002 to 2006 as a Board Director of AIM listed company Allergy Therapeutics plc, which he helped to take to market. He is an experienced angel investor and and also a Director of The OpShop, which helps provide strategic options and opportunities for start-ups and SME’s.

Duncan Mackintosh

Duncan is the Chief Executive of WaikatoLink Limited. Duncan has initiated a number of key strategic initiatives while at WaikatoLink including the set-up of seed funds, an international internship programme and collaborations to facilitate commercialisation and increase the impact of innovation. He has also founded or co-founded a number of new ventures based on University of Waikato IP. He is the Founding Manager and Director of AngelLink, a national angel investment network backing New Zealand high growth technology ventures with an emphasis on life sciences, engineering and ICT. Prior to WaikatoLink he held roles in commercialisation and technology incubator development and management. Duncan graduated from Massey University in 1995 with a BVSc in Veterinary Science and worked as a veterinarian for seven years.

Dr Peter John

Dr Peter John is Director of Research and Commercialisation at Lincoln University. An engineer by training Peter started his professional career working on lake hydrodynamics on the central plateau of New Zealand. In 1983 he joined the New Zealand Agricultural Engineering Institute as Leader of its Soil and Water Section, later taking the position of Commercial Manager. In 1993 he became the establishment CEO at Lincoln Ventures Ltd and moved to his current position in 2005. He has led the commercialisation of a range of biological, chemical, manufactured and software products in the agricultural, bioscience and engineering sectors.

Kevin Pryor

Kevin’s commercialisation team facilitates the development and growth of AUT’s knowledge and intellectual property into commercial opportunities. Kevin’s career, which has spanned both academic and commercial environments, has positioned him ideally for the role of CEO AUT Enterprises Ltd and Director Commercialisation . Prior to joining AUT, Kevin had a successful career in a number of commercial companies, in various roles that covered strategic and business planning, project management and international marketing.

Geoff Todd

Geoff is the Managing Director of Viclink Ltd. Geoff has extensive and well recognised international skills at raising capital, purchase and sale of technology businesses, joint venture agreements and adding significant commercial value to technology projects. Geoff serves on the Board of a number of technology and medical companies, is a core participant in a start up medical device company and previously had a leading role in the establishment of three technology companies. Geoff is currently the Chair of the Creative HQ Board of Directors. Geoff was General Manager Business Development at IRL for over 10 years.

Tim Balmer

Tim joined Industrial Research Limited (IRL), now part of Callaghan Innovation, in April, 2010, and has been primarily responsible for the management of it’s PreSeed Accelerator Fund (PSAF). In February 2011 Tim took on the additional responsibility for the commercialisation of it’s technologies/IP portfolio. Prior to this, Tim spent 20 years in the pharmaceutical (Animal Health) industry in various positions and locations around the world, with 7 years in R&D, 7 years in corporate business development roles and latterly 7 years in general management positions, in the UK, NZ, China and Canada, which encompassed a huge variety of commercialisation projects. Tim is a veterinarian by training (Cambridge, 1986), and spent 2½ years in general practice in the UK before joining industry.

Neil Tunnell

Neil has a Mathematics Degree from Bristol University, and subsequently qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young in London. During that time he gained commercial experience in both banking and mergers and acquisitions in their London and Prague offices. Neil was part of the team that investigated the Barings Bank failure on behalf of the Bank of England. After leaving practice he furthered his career working in commercial roles with News International, Tomkins PLC and Linklaters, where assignments involved new business start ups, divestments and further merger and acquisition work.

Neil oversees AgResearch’s investment portfolio and strategies, as well as drive some of the larger commercialisation projects.

Dr Nigel Johnson

Nigel is Director, Research & Innovation at the University of Canterbury, responsible for providing services that support the University’s research and technology transfer activities. He has extensive experience in the management of industry-focussed research and transfer to commercial use, especially with the international textile manufacturing sector. He previously held a number of senior positions at Australia’s national research organisation, CSIRO, including membership of their Commercial Executive Committee, and at the NZ-based research organisations Canesis Network Ltd and the Wool Research Organisation.

Colin Dawson

As chief executive of Otago Innovation Ltd, Colin brings both commercial experience and a specialist knowledge in the life sciences field to the role. Following 10 years in veterinary clinical practice, he held several senior executive positions in the public and private healthcare sectors, including general manager of clinical support services at Health Waikato and executive director of strategy with the Calan Group. Immediately prior to joining Otago Innovation in 2002, Colin was managing partner at health consulting investment-banking firm Medicus Capital.

Gavin Ross

Dr Gavin Ross has a deep understanding of biotechnology R&D, particularly in the Crown Research environment. He began his career as a research scientist studying the molecular biology of fruit ripening. In 1988 he joined HortResearch (now Plant & Food Research) as a research scientist and in the late 1990s was central to the establishment of genomics research for major horticultural crops, now integral to the Institute’s scientific programmes. After several years with Genesis R&D Corporation, in 2005 Gavin was appointed as HortResearch’s first Vice President Business Development in the USA. Here he was responsible for building the Institute’s US business and liaising with US-based clients and collaborators. In 2010, Gavin returned to New Zealand and is now the General Manager, Business Development with responsibility for the Institute’s global business effort. He is also the Chair of Plant & Food Research’s internal Investment Committee, which is responsible for investing the Institute’s Core Purpose funding from Government. During his career, Gavin has established an international reputation in plant molecular biology and fruit science, and has a strong network of science and industry contacts across New Zealand and the USA.

Dean Moss

Dean Moss has over 25 years’ experience in science, academia, business, management and commercialisation in Australia, USA and the UK. He has been managing director or senior business development executive of several health and biotech companies worldwide, including Agen Biomedical, AMRAD, Launch Diagnostics and United Drug. He established his own successful start-up business in the UK, York Medical Technologies.

Prior to moving into the commercial world, Dean was principal R&D scientist at Agen Biomedical. He also worked as an NH&MRC research scientist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, the Royal Brisbane Hospital and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. He is a recipient of the Campion-Ma-Playoust Memorial Award for Medical Research.

Since joining UniQuest Pty Ltd at The University of Queensland in 2006 as General Manager, Life Sciences, Dean has built a strong team that manages the intellectual property and its commercialisation at UQ and in partnership with four Australian universities (University of Technology Sydney, University of Wollongong, James Cook University and University of Tasmania), the Mater Medical Research Institute and Queensland Health.

Dean is a board member of several Australian companies and a member of the investment committee of the pre-seed venture funds Uniseed, the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund and the New Zealand Government’s KiwiNet. He has contributed to raising over $50m in venture capital investment.

Dr Andrew Kelly

Dr Andrew Kelly is one of Australia-New Zealand’s most experienced biotech investment managers. He is Managing Director and co-founder of BioPacificVentures, a specialist venture capital fund focused on food & agriculture, health & wellness. The fund has the New Zealand Government’s Venture Investment Fund as a cornerstone investor as well as the world’s largest food company, Nestlé, and New Zealand’s largest agribusiness, PGG Wrightson.

BioPacificVentures is part of New Zealand’s Direct Capital group which has completed more than 70 private equity and venture capital investments over 18 years; and it is a regular co-investor with Europe-based Inventages, the world’s largest investor in this space with over US$1.5 billion under management

The first 20 years of Andrew’s career were in science and product development, including General Manager at AgResearch, New Zealand and Director of two research institutes in Australia. He has both Masters and PhD degrees in the life sciences.

Dr Libby Harrison

Dr Libby Harrison is General Manager Development at Landcare Research – Manaaki Whenua. Libby is responsible for a wide portfolio including; communications and marketing, Māori and International partnerships, and business development. Libby is an environmental scientist by training with over 15 years’ experience working in research and development in the international chemicals industry, and running the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) pesticides programme. Libby joined Landcare Research in April 2012 after ten years working for the New Zealand public sector; for the Ministry for the Environment, the Environmental Risk Management Authority and the newly formed Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).

David Christensen

David is an experienced commercialisation manager, having worked in the broad area of University technology commercialisation since 2004; much of his current commercialisation focus is around diagnostic biomarkers, physical medical devices and ICT opportunities. Prior to joining Otago Innovation in 2007, David spent a period of time as a Business Manager with FRST, and the University of Otago where he was the Acting Director Enterprise. During this latter period his focus was on the early identification of commercially valuable IP, as well as building the University’s applied research focus. David also has a background in banking and finance, having spent 13 years with the BNZ in the personal and commercial banking environments. David is the Otago Innovation representative on the KiwiNet Investment Committee and Otago’s non-academic appointment to the CMDT steering committee.